


Anything Goes

by vifetoile



Series: Air Rebellion [4]
Category: Avatar: Legend of Korra
Genre: Coming of Age, Gen, Post-Series, Rebellion, Republic City
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-06-23
Updated: 2016-06-23
Packaged: 2018-07-16 18:27:41
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 463
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7279180
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/vifetoile/pseuds/vifetoile
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Airbenders love peace. Rohan listens to the radio late at night in Republic City, and gets to thinking...</p>
            </blockquote>





	Anything Goes

_The world has gone mad today and good is bad today and black is white today and day is night today – Airbenders love peace_

 

Air is the element of freedom.

How often has he heard that?

Does anyone really believe it anymore?

Rohan sits on the rooftops of Air Temple island, his hair loose and picking up in the wind, and he wonders. Next to him, the radio burrs the news to itself.

000

Rohan was a late bloomer; he didn’t show any trace of airbending until he was seven. Eleven years later, he shows no sign of developing the sheer power that his siblings possess. But he doesn’t mind. He doesn’t need to summon gale forces to feel like himself.

Rohan grows up in a different world than his siblings. By the time he’s old enough to form his own idea of the world, Harmonic Convergence and the Unification War are all past. He’s never known a time before there was a small but vibrant Air Nation around his family.

Maybe this is the source of this rift between himself and his siblings. In their minds, they have never let go of this idea that they are special, three utter miracles in the wide world.

Rohan knows he’s loved, knows he’s special. But he sees a different world than they do. He sees a world where all the legends have passed, where spirits living in Republic City are a fact. While his siblings wander the world, chasing challenges or enlightenment, he’s still flying over their home city, listening to the radio late at night. Listening to what’s wrong with the world.

Rohan loves Republic City, and he loves its people. He’s happy to stay at Air Temple Island, the last fledgling of his family. But he thinks, there’s got to be more that I can do.

He can’t even name the instinct. He meets every single Air Nomad who comes through Republic City, but none of them connect with him. As the days go by, he wants, more and more, to hear wisdom that doesn’t derive from the wellspring of Avatar Aang.

In the end…

In the beginning, Rohan approaches the prison outside of the city. He tells the guards he’s on a mission from his father. They let him through – how could they even presume to doubt the son of Master Tenzin?

Step by step, deeper and deeper into the earth, until Rohan is face to face with the only forbidden Airbender in the world.

The prisoner slowly opens his eyes. “And what should Master Tenzin want with me?”

Rohan prepares his lie. But some prescient part of him knows, this is where his education begins. So, instead, he tells the truth.

“Zaheer,” he says, “I want to learn from you.”

 


End file.
